You are more likely to be violently attacked working at a convenience store than being a cop. But we would not tolerate it if the guy next to the slim jims pointed a gun at every random customer. Citizens that choose to carry a weapon for self-defense cannot point their weapon a people just in case, or even put their hand on their weapon or flash it to other people, that is called brandishing and is a crime. Yet police do it as a normal part of their interactions. This idea that police should be allowed threaten and intimidate other citizens as a normal part of their job because “its so dangerous” is ridiculous.
> it's probably very ingrained SOP to have weapons drawn
Then this is a failure of their training or a failure of the individual police. Hand waving police having deadly weapons drawn and pointed at fellow citizens because of habit is not acceptable.
> That they had their 'guns out of holsters' is actually perfectly reasonable because systematically, it's too dangerous for them otherwise.
First, it is not too dangerous. Second, if it is, then pick a new line of work. If you are too scared to do your job correctly and would rather put citizens at increased risk then join the post office. And maybe, just maybe, a policy of shoving guns in people’s faces is what escalates many of these situations.
You are absolutely more likely to be shot at while serving a warrant, than working in a convenience store.
"Citizens that choose to carry a weapon for self-defense cannot point their weapon a people just in case"
Citizens are not police officers, entrusted to carry out the law and who must actively confront danger, moreover, police are trained to do so.
"Then this is a failure of their training or a failure of the individual police."
This is wrong to the extent that it's very rational for police to at least have weapons drawn when individuals are refusing to comply with the warrant etc.. 'Weapons drawn' is a very simple tactic, which makes them easy to use if necessary. It is not in and of itself particularly dangerous.
"First, it is not too dangerous. "
Yes it is. [1] (from the AP, not Fox News) Have a little Google yourself.
" Second, if it is, then pick a new line of work"
This is a shameful remark, exemplary of the general tone here. "If you don't want to get COVID and die - quit being a nurse - now go ahead and work without a mask!". It's absurd (and basically offensive) to suggest that public servants shouldn't have the right to take appropriate steps to defend themselves, or even have to put themselves in a position of danger, let alone harassment in the first place.
Even African American Police officers are called the n-word and put up with all sorts of horrible abuses (just search 'police' on TikTok) which should definitely be illegal: you cannot go into the DMV or IRS (or Wallmart!) and start harassing people - the same should apply to police.
If the woman in question was concerned for the safety of her children, she would have simply opened the door and 'used her words'.
If in fact, the Gov. is illegally intimidating her, and she's done no wrong, well then I hope the judge recognizes that.
Finally, police reform is not going to come form the plebes on social media, it's going to have to be done thoughtfully, by them, led probably by ex-police officers who have first-hand experience.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/30fd23e66f21446b90d2b8cb0135ae03
> You are absolutely more likely to be shot at while serving a warrant, than working in a convenience store.
Do either of you have statistics?
> Yes it is. [1] (from the AP, not Fox News) Have a little Google yourself.
Serving a search warrant on a statistician who blew the whistle on corruption is nowhere near the same situation as serving a search warrant on drug dealers. Come the fuck on.
Serving warrants in general dangerous, point blank - and even 'white collar criminals' who don't answer the door are giving indication that something may be up.
It's 100% reasonable for the police to have their weapons upholstered at that point and well within reasonable SOP.
2) There's no evidence of corruption on behalf of the officials in Florida - this is the continued misrepresentation of some in the press, and easy echo-chamber populism.
There as an argument over how data should be represented; disagreeing with your employer is not 'whistleblowing'.
Again - Florida releases considerably more detailed information than they do in any province in Canada and somehow, everyone seems to think that we are doing 'such a great job in governance'.
The overall level of wilful ignorance on these nuanced incidents in shameful. Even so-called smart people believe what their emotional triggers and biases want them to believe.
I'm looking forward to hearing what the courts have to say about it.
Over 600 convenience store workers are murdered on the job per year [1] compared to about 60 per year for police [2], about 5-7 of which are during serving warrants (additionally backed by your own source). Convenience store workers are murdered at about 7 per 100k, while police are about 7-8 per 100k [3]. As for how dangerous it is, there are more than 60,000 “no knock raid” search warrants per year in the US [4] and there is no way of knowing how many 10s of thousands of regular warrants are served as well. Saying that serving warrants is “inherently dangerous” because people could become violent is like saying working at a convenience store is inherently dangerous because any customer could be a violent robber.
> This is a shameful remark, exemplary of the general tone here. "If you don't want to get COVID and die - quit being a nurse - now go ahead and work without a mask!". It's absurd (and basically offensive) to suggest that public servants shouldn't have the right to take appropriate steps to defend themselves, or even have to put themselves in a position of danger, let alone harassment in the first place.
Well, wearing a mask doesn’t put others at greater risk. If police want to wear body armor, great. If police want to put other people in danger by excessive weapons use, then no that is not ok. Everyone is allowed to defend themselves against an attacker. Police want to defend themselves anyone that could be an attacker, which is not ok. I am all for providing safety equipment and training to all jobs. I am not ok with compromising the safety of others for the safety, perceived or otherwise, of the police.
This twisting of the concept of defending yourself is exactly the problem. Police already carry guns, multiple less lethal weapons, body armor, etc. If they are attacked, they have multiple ways of stopping the threat, including deadly force. No one has made any claim otherwise. But police want to be able to brandish their weapons and point their weapons at other people that have not shown themselves to be a threat, because there is the possibility of a threat and the misguided idea that imagined threats justify real threats by the police against other citizens.
My tone is one of outrage that police brandishing or even drawing their weapons against unarmed fellow citizens is just seen as normal and acceptable. That police being allowed to see every person as a potential threat and to treat them that way is the standard. Having your hand on your weapon is a threat. Having a weapon drawn is a threat. Pointing your weapon at someone else is a threat. Police threatening unarmed people is not acceptable.
[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/cwc/assaults-and-violent-acts-i...
[2] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...
[3] https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/police-2018.htm
[4] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-war-on-drugs-gave-...
Proof? This sounds an awful lot like something a police department who refused to publish video evidence themselves would make up out of thin air to save face.
The press clearly misrepresented even the minor facts of the case ('pointed guns at children') for which there isn't any evidence - using that likely untruth as the headline item thereby making it an iron clad fact of 'truth' in the public narrative.
It's possible, even likely that 1) The woman did something actually wrong and used government accounts without permission and 2) she didn't answer the door for 20 minutes, thereby requiring the police to take a more assertive posture. And frankly I doubt they pointed guns at children because that would be pointless. (Although it's possible she is entirely innocent of breaking into said systems, and possibly has some entirely good reason why she didn't answer the door for the police for 20 minutes)
If you use some public system in an unauthorized way, download data, you certainly would expect police to knock in the door, and you don't answer it for 20 minutes, they might have their guns upholstered when you finally do. That's not unreasonable.
Also, just because someone has a grievance with your company/government, doesn't them a whistleblower. In the entirety of her public foray, I'm not able to find the specific nature of her concerns - the more I look, the more I doubt her claims. Florida releases more data than any province here in Canada as I can tell, here is the Florida dashboard [1] here is the Ontario dashboard [2].
Florida release information specifically related to schools, LTC facilities etc. - Quebec has for example denied that data to the public.
I feel the entire case, like everything, has been politicized.
For reference From [3]: "Plessinger said Jones refused to answer the door for 20 minutes and hung up on agents. Jones eventually let the agents into the home, she said.
Her family was upstairs when agents entered, Plessinger said.
The 31-second video Jones posted on Twitter shows agents entering her home with their guns drawn. Jones tells the officers that her husband and two children are upstairs as they direct her outside of the house.
One of the agents points his gun toward the stairwell. An officer shouts, “Police, come down now.”
As the video ends, Jones yells, “He just pointed a gun at my children.” The video does not show any children, or agents pointing guns at any children. FDLE said agents didn’t point guns at anyone."
[1] https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/
[2] https://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/data-and-analysis/infe...
[3] https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-whistleblower...
So it's not as if the police just came in like a swat team off the bat.
America is a dangerous place, and just like you're a 'regular person at the range with an AR and a Glock' - guns are everywhere.
The 'normal' situation for police to be serving a warrant would be against people accused of things more physically nefarious, and it's probably very ingrained SOP to have weapons drawn if the individual wouldn't open the door and some degree of aggression needed to be used to enter the premises to serve the warrant.
That they had their 'guns out of holsters' is actually perfectly reasonable because systematically, it's too dangerous for them otherwise.
That said - this was a warrant for a white collar/non-violent crime and there's just no excuse for pointing guns at kids, or even the former employee frankly.
Point being, we can't cherry-pick just the things that don't sound nice, and entirely decontextualise.
If there weren't 500 million guns, many of them high-powered floating around out there - and Americans didn't have a propensity for shooting at cops (the level of assertion people show when being arrested in the US is way more than in other nations, car chases barely ever happen in my home country) - then the SOP (standard operating procedures) would be very different. Cops are chill where I'm from - t least in part - because they just don't face aggression or violence in a way that is really threatening. Fights, yes, guns in their faces, almost unheard of.
Given the possibly political nature of the arrest, I think it probably needs to be reviewed by the local Justice Department as well because 'gun pointing aside' - the other Elephant in the room is the issue of whistleblower harassment etc..